Category Archives: Hunger

‘Open your eyes’: Yemen on brink of famine again, UN agencies warn

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Millions face devastating hunger if relief efforts are not stepped up in a country ravaged by war, locusts and now Covid-19

Yemen is in danger of an imminent return to devastating levels of hunger and food insecurity, according to new analysis released by UN agencies.

The World Food Programme (WFP), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Unicef say that the percentage of the population predicted to face acute food insecurity in southern areas of the country will rise from 25% to 40% by the end of the year.

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Hunger could kill millions more than Covid-19, warns Oxfam

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Starvation looms from Afghanistan to Haiti as coronavirus restrictions wipe out incomes and cut food supplies

Millions of people are being pushed towards hunger by the coronavirus pandemic, which could end up killing more people through lack of food than from the illness itself, Oxfam has warned.

Closed borders, curfews and travel restrictions have disrupted food supplies and incomes in already fragile countries, forcing an extra million people closer to famine in Afghanistan and heightening the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, where two-thirds already live in hunger.

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Malnutrition leading cause of death and ill health worldwide – report

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Coronavirus highlights weakness of food and health systems, as Global Nutrition Report finds one in nine of world’s population is hungry

An overhaul of the world’s food and health systems is needed to tackle malnutrition, a “threat multiplier” that is now the leading cause of ill health and deaths globally, according to new analysis.

The Global Nutrition Report 2020 found that most people across the world cannot access or afford healthy food, due to agricultural systems that favour calories over nutrition as well as the ubiquity and low cost of highly processed foods. Inequalities exist across and within countries, it says.

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Where India’s government has failed in the pandemic, its people have stepped in

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Civil society has outperformed the state in helping to feed India’s poorest. It should be seen as ally not enemy

The highways connecting India’s overcrowded cities to the villages had not seen anything like it since the time of partition 73 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of workers were on the move, walking back to their villages with their possessions bundled on their heads.

On 24 March, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a nationwide 21-day lockdown to contain the coronavirus pandemic. States sealed their borders, and transport came to a halt. With no trains or buses to take them home, India’s rural-to-urban migrant population, estimated at a staggering 120 million, took to the roads. On 5 April a statement from the home ministry said 1.25 million people moving between states had been put up in camps and shelters.

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‘Race against time’ to prevent famines during coronavirus crisis

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UN calls for international solidarity to ease effects of Covid-19 on food security

Vulnerable parts of the developing world, particularly in Africa, are at risk of sliding into famine as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, while humanitarian relief efforts are being hindered by lockdowns and travel restrictions, according to the UN.

Experts raised the spectre of unrest similar to that seen in 2007-08 when food price rises sparked riots around the world, destabilising fragile states and fuelling conflict in ways that are still being felt. They told the Guardian that the world could still avoid such a crisis, but time was running out.

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Coronavirus could double number of people going hungry

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Exclusive: multinationals write to G7 and G20 urging leaders to keep borders open to trade and avert global food crisis

Food supplies across the world will be “massively disrupted” by the coronavirus, and unless governments act the number of people suffering chronic hunger could double, some of the world’s biggest food companies have warned.

Unilever, Nestlé and PepsiCo, along with farmers’ organisations, the UN Foundation, academics, and civil society groups, have written to world leaders, calling on them to keep borders open to trade in order to help society’s most vulnerable, and to invest in environmentally sustainable food production.

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Drought leaves tens of thousands in Lesotho ‘one step from famine’

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Rural areas worst hit as massive fall in food production causes severe hunger for a quarter of country’s population

Tšepo Molapo gazes into space, worrying about where the next meal will come from. Next to him, his two-year-old granddaughter plays, oblivious of their desperate situation.

Molapo’s children all died at illegal mines in neighbouring South Africa, where they had trekked in search of work.

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UN sounds alarm over unprecedented levels of hunger in southern Africa

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Women and children bear brunt as drought and extreme weather leave tens of millions short of food

Southern Africa is in the throes of a climate emergency, with hunger levels in the region on a previously unseen scale, the UN has warned.

Years of drought, widespread flooding and economic disarray have left 45 million people facing severe food shortages, with women and children bearing the brunt of the crisis, said the World Food Programme (WFP).

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Failure to end civil war in Yemen now could cost $29bn

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NGO warns conflict may drag on for five years if current peace efforts fail

A failure to capture the present rare chance for peace in Yemen may potentially cost the international community $29bn (£22bn) in further humanitarian aid if the current civil war continues for another five years, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) warns on Monday in a new report.

It is also likely to prolong Yemen’s inability to return to pre-crisis levels of hunger by 20 years just as famine conditions are improving.

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UN warns Burkina Faso could become ‘another Syria’ as violence soars

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Children bear the brunt as extremism and climate crisis drive almost 500,000 people from their homes

The UN food agency has warned of an “escalating humanitarian crisis” in Burkina Faso, driven by growing extremist violence and the long-term impact of climate crisis in the arid central Sahel region.

A sharp increase in attacks, the result of the west African country becoming embroiled in the jihadist insurgency that began in the region in early 2015, has forced almost half a million people from their homes.

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‘We have nothing’: Somalia floods raise spectre of famine

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Communities already hit by war and drought face fresh disaster as 370,000 are forced from homes

Ciraa Farah Ali was asleep when she heard the flood. It was dark, and the 45-year-old mother of seven was alone with her children in her small home in Beledweyne, central Somalia.

Related: Global heating supercharging Indian Ocean climate system

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How do we feed the world without destroying it? | Bob Geldof

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An international summit next year will tackle the world’s most enduring crisis – hunger. Radical action is needed

Hunger is the most awful and profound expression of poverty. It exists in every country. It is something that most people can identify with on some perhaps primordial level. It is innate. The fear of hunger is etched into our DNA, passed down the generations from hungry, scared ancestors. It is in our bones. It is in my Irish bones.

First, the good news. For several decades global hunger has been decreasing. This is mostly thanks to the sweat and ingenuity of the 500 million smallholders who produce 80% of the food consumed in the developing world. It is also thanks to the work of exceptional NGOs, to economic growth and to the innovation of businesses all along the supply chain. It’s thanks, too, to the support of governments and international organisations. And it’s to increased political stability in some places.

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‘Failing’ food system leaves millions of children malnourished or overweight

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Unicef report finds poorest children at greatest risk, while price of healthy food in rich nations drives food poverty

At least one in three children under five are either undernourished or overweight, and one in two lack essential vitamins and nutrients, the UN children’s agency has warned.

The Unicef report laid bare the alarming rate at which poor diets and a “failing” food system are damaging children, saying that “millions are eating too little of what they need and millions are eating too much of what they don’t need: poor diets are now the main risk factor for the global burden of disease”.

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Higher temperatures driving ‘alarming’ levels of hunger – report

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Global hunger index finds countries affected by drought and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa have seen biggest increases in undernourished people

The climate crisis is driving alarming levels of hunger in the world, undermining food security in the world’s most vulnerable regions, according to this year’s global hunger index.

The annual report, a ranking of 117 countries measuring hunger rates and trends, shows progress since 2000 but warns that the world still has a long way to go to reach the zero hunger target agreed by world leaders by 2030.

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The many faces of global hunger – in pictures

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Lack of proper nutrition affects more than 150 million children worldwide, contributing to 3m deaths each year. In a series of images from Central African Republic, South Sudan and Liberia, part of a new exhibition in London, a trio of award-winning photographers set out to depict the issue in their own way

  • Names have been changed
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Severe hunger threatens millions in Somalia as climate emergency deepens

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Aid efforts to help communities struggling to recover from drought compounded by continuing conflict, aggravated by al-Shabaab

Somalia faces a new humanitarian crisis with more than 2 million people now threatened by severe hunger, aid agencies say.

A further 3 million people are uncertain of their next meal, latest assessments suggest.

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World hunger on the rise as 820m at risk, UN report finds

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Eliminating hunger by 2030 is an immense challenge, say heads of UN agencies

More than 820 million people worldwide are still going hungry, according to a UN report that says reaching the target of zero hunger by 2030 is “an immense challenge”.

The number of people with not enough to eat has risen for the third year in a row as the population increases, after a decade when real progress was made. The underlying trend is stabilisation, when global agencies had hoped it would fall.

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Syrians are watching crops burn. These starvation crimes must end | Mohammad Kanfash and Ali al-Jasem

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Amid a war that may have cost 500,000 lives, we must hold the Syrian government and others to account for the use of hunger as a weapon

In 2017, we started an agricultural project to help hundreds of families survive the blockade by the Assad government, as part of the Damaan Humanitarian Organization’s programme to support civilians in besieged eastern ghouta in Syria.

The project not only provided sustenance to the besieged population, it offered employment opportunities for many people.

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Two million people at risk of starvation as drought returns to Somalia

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Agencies sound the alarm over ‘climate crisis’ after devastation of crops and livestock

More than 2 million people could face starvation by the end of the summer, unless there are urgent efforts to respond to the drought in Somalia.

Mark Lowcock, the UN’s humanitarian chief, said the country is facing one of the driest rainy seasons in more than three decades, and a “rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation”.

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Nearly half of all child deaths in Africa stem from hunger, study shows

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Almost 60 million children deprived of food despite continent’s economic growth, in what is ‘fundamentally a political problem’

One in three African children are stunted and hunger accounts for almost half of all child deaths across the continent, an Addis Ababa-based thinktank has warned.

In an urgent call for action, a study by the African Child Policy Forum said that nearly 60 million children in Africa do not have enough food despite the continent’s economic growth in recent years.

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